Hair Care and Styling Tips From the Experts
Taking care of your gorgeous locks is a good way to help boost your confidence, look great for a date, or treat yourself to some well-deserved pampering. Whatever the reasons are that you have for wanting to style and care for your hair, you need quality advice.
Luckily, hair care is one of the biggest components of the beauty industry so there is never a lack of information on new products and techniques. Finding the right care and styling tips can be a short click away, but to save you time, here are some quick and easy tips from the experts.
1. Limit How Much You Wash Your Hair
Your hair has a natural amount of oils that accumulate to protect the sheen of it and prevent drying out, which leads to breakage. While the look of oily or greasy hair is natural, it might not be the most appealing. The problem is that overwashing can be very bad for the hair. Some experts suggest limiting it to 3 washes a week for hair protection. Curly hair can go longer between washes because it is thicker and stronger, but even if you do need to wash more often, avoid harsh chemicals, and use softer water.
2. Find the Right Straightener
Not every haircare tool is built the same. It is also important to know that your hair is not the same as the next person who uses a straightener. A naturally straight-haired person could require a brush, whereas curly hair will need a straightener that does not do excessive damage through heat. Good straighteners have a wide range of settings to finely tune your comfort level for hair styling.
3. Add a Dry Shampoo to Your Routine
Shampoo can be good or bad, but it is important to have it in your hair care arsenal. Using it too often could damage the natural oils and proteins, but the right dry shampoo might actually improve your hair health. It can be used in-between those days without washing to help keep some luster without the feeling of a greasy head. Just remember that dry shampoo should not be used all the time as it can clog hair follicles on the scalp.
4. Good Conditioners Will Improve Hair Strength
Protein is one of the most important factors in healthy hair and conditioner is one of the best products to maintain strong and vibrant looking hair. Conditioner, like shampoo, should not be used every single day because of its chemical makeup, even the natural shampoos can dry out hair. Good conditioners can help improve hair strength by improving the proteins in the hair. Conditioning the mid-length of your hair and not the scalp/roots, deep conditioning the hair, towel-drying the shampoo out before adding conditioner and applying heat to help the conditioner set into the hair are all tips that will improve your hair care.
5. Improve Your Brushing
Just like improving your conditioning game, you need to improve how you brush as well. Course brushing techniques can damage the hair and scalp if you are too rough or use the wrong methods. To get healthy hair with your technique, you can use two short, minute-long brushes a day, once in the morning and once before bed. Similarly, you need to brush from just above the bottom of your hair and work down, instead of the usual method of working all the way down from the roots. This helps remove tangles easier and prevents aggressive and damaging brush strokes.
6. Add More Hair Health Products
While it may sound like you should ditch the products and go "au naturel" as much as possible, good products are still worth their weight in gold for proper styling and hair maintenance. Heat protection spray to protect hair from UV damage and excessive hair straightening is important. There are plenty of at-home products like baby oil that can be massaged into your hair and scalp to prevent dandruff and help retain moisture. Other good products include wet brushes, argan oil, and pre-shampoo treatments like oils and creams for coarse hair.
Haircare is a fussy subject because there are so many opinions on what does and does not work. It is best to remember that no two people are alike when it comes to their hair so many treatments are subjective. However, there are plenty of tips that can be useful for nearly any hair type and they often work well too. These hair care and styling tips should help you no matter what condition or quality your hair is in and help you get that luster you want.